Guest commentary

As former Attorneys General, and Alaskans fortunate enough to call this great state home, we urge Alaskans to vote “No” on Ballot Measure 1.
The citizens who drafted our state Constitution understood that the protection of our natural resources was of the utmost importance, but they also acknowledged that a state with an abundance of natural resources, yet thinly populated and with little connectivity in terms of a road system, would have to rely on the responsible development.
This principle is best expressed in Article VIII, Section 1 of our constitution, which states that “(it) is the policy of the State to encourage the settlement of its land and the development of its resources by making them available for maximum use consistent with the public interest.”
Ballot Measure 1 disrupts this balance to the detriment of all Alaskans. The Alaska Supreme Court recently ruled that the initiative could remain on the ballot, but only after striking its unconstitutional sections.
However, even after striking the most onerous provisions, the court observed that “viewed as a whole,” it was apparent that Ballot Measure 1 would create a broad new definition of what is protected fish habitat and make Alaska’s “fish habitat protection statutes significantly more restrictive.”
For example, Ballot Measure 1 contains, according to the Alaska Supreme Court, “a plethora of undefined terms.”
For landowners trying to comply with the law, this is a step in the wrong direction — and this is just as true for an entity seeking to develop a large mine as it is for land owners wishing to install a culvert on their property.
It also radically expands the opportunity for legal challenges to granted permits, allowing anyone to challenge a permit in court resulting in costly delays and endless litigation.
Under current laws and regulations, studies are required to determine whether a body of water contains certain kinds of fish. If Ballot Measure 1 passes, this flips, and all waters in the state will be assumed to be fish habitat until proved otherwise.
This has the potential to create a legal quagmire for property owners, especially private citizens.
Thousands of Alaskans have riverfront or lake front property, and there are many improvements to property that might impact a body of water, such as a stream, running on private property. Ballot Measure 1 may force a landowner to pay for an expensive habitat study to prove that fish will not be impacted by a planned improvement.
Worse, Ballot Measure 1 changes the penalties from civil to criminal for property owners who fail to secure the required permits.
Failure to seek a permit for even minor construction activity in a river flood plain, which encompasses huge areas of Alaska, will make individual Alaskans, workers on municipal projects, and business owners criminals under our laws.
We are not alone in expressing grave doubts. We join dozens of groups and organizations in opposing this Ballot Measure.
Contractors, regional and village Native corporations, labor unions, resource development and energy companies, and responsible Alaskans are rightfully concerned that another significant project may never be built in this state if the initiative passes — and this would certainly be true for rural Alaska as well.
Ballot Measure 1 is a bad law. It has not been subject to public comment, hearings, or review by regulators or independent scientists. Alaska deserves better than Ballot Measure 1, and we urge Alaskan voters to reject this fatally flawed measure when they vote on Nov. 6.
Signed by:
Craig Richards, John Burns, Michael Geraghty, Dave Marquez and Sen. Dan Sullivan.

We, the signatories, are Alaska fisheries managers, scientists, regulators, and former state officials. We have spent our careers working on fisheries management, science, and resource management.
For more than 60 years, Alaska has responsibly balanced resource development and the protection of our state’s natural resources — including our fisheries. As topic experts, our interest in supporting that balance makes us question the viability of Ballot Measure 1.
Ballot Measure 1 replaces Alaska’s scientific process for identifying, studying and permitting fish habitat with new and untested regulations. Today, when a project is on the horizon, we go out to the area in question and conduct numerous studies, including water turbidity, fish counts, escapement rates, temperature, water levels, and so on.
Multiple state and federal agencies collaborate to make this all happen. And when it comes time to evaluate a permit, the data collected is scrutinized and carefully considered before any decisions on how to move forward, or even if to move forward, are made.
Alaska’s approach to fisheries management has been codified in law, acts as a blueprint for fisheries management, and is widely praised as best practices around the country and the world.
It is a model that has worked in permitting both industry and community projects, like pipelines, major dams and roadways that enable Alaskans to live their everyday lives. Finding balance has been the responsibility of those who have worked in fisheries management for much of their careers.
Reasonable improvements could be made to our current laws, but Ballot Measure 1 was written with no public input on how to improve habitat protections already in place and it unreasonably overhauls current law.
Ballot Measure 1 proposes a system that is unworkable, unmanageable and unaffordable. Moreover, Ballot Measure 1 was drafted in private without public review or scrutiny.
That approach flies directly in the face of our greatest responsibility: to review and scrutinize the data before arriving at a decision.
We believe that lack of transparency results in a ballot measure rife with vague and imprecise language that will create confusion and uncertainty in how we permit and protect our anadromous fish in Alaskan waters.
The issue here is more than just a debate over process. Salmon runs are down across most of Alaska. Ballot Measure 1 supporters point to this measure as a needed fix. However, Ballot Measure 1 fails to address the actual challenges facing wild salmon today in our waters.
Many experts have identified various changing ocean conditions as contributing factors to this problem. One of those is the mass of warm water located in the Gulf of Alaska — the so-called “blob.”
There are other factors contributing as well, such as increasing presence of invasive predatory fish, ocean acidification, and food-source competition.
In a recent article published on the Alaska Public Radio website, ADFG biologist Nicole Zeise stated that “most of the data suggests that the problem’s in the marine environment … Freshwater systems are healthy, producing plenty of smolt and fry going out. It’s just that something’s going on in the ocean that we can’t control.”
The recent Chinook Symposium in Sitka in May helped highlight the current science about the decline in salmon runs. Salmon researcher Ed Jones was quoted in another Alaska Public Radio broadcast discussing the down cycle in salmon.
“They’re dying at sea. So yes, fisheries, seals, killer whales, are all added factors, but the biggest driver is Mother Nature right now,” said Jones, further highlighting changing ocean conditions as a cause for declining salmon runs.
If we want to protect our salmon for future generations, then we need more analysis and data in order to generate an effective plan. In the meantime, we urge Alaskans to learn more about Ballot Measure 1 and what it could do to our current, effective management.
Alaska needs a balanced, effective policy for protecting our resources—and Ballot Measure 1 fails that test.
Signed,
Randy Bates, Former Division Director of Habitat, Department of Fish &Game
Ed Fogels, Former Deputy Commissioner &Former Director of the Office of Project Management and Permitting, Department of Natural Resources
Kerry Howard, Former Division Director of Habitat, ADFG
Thomas E. Irwin, Former DNR Commissioner
Bill Jeffress, Former Director of the Office of Project Management and Permitting, DNR
Doug Vincent Lang, Former Director of Wildlife Conservation; Assistant Director of Sport Fish; and Special Assistant to the Commissioner, ADFG
Bob Loeffler, Former Director of Division of Mining, Land and Water, DNR
Ginny Litchfield Former Habitat Division Area Manager to the Kenai Peninsula, ADFG
Bill Morris, Former Division of Habitat Regional Supervisor-Northern Region, ADFG
Slim Morstad, Former Area Management Biologist-Naknek/Kvichak, ADFG
Marty K. Rutherford, Former DNR Commissioner